Compare two countries Indonesia vs DR Congo with a dependent variable , mine is economic performance after independence. and then say why country “A” is better than country “b”
this is the exact question paper from the professor ..
1. Step: You have to find two countries with different results in the fields of democracy and stability, because the task is to learn how to compare them in order to find the reason for the different outcomes. Whatever you choose (human rights records, the role of the army in politics, etc) is your ependent variable.
(Try to rely on your general knowledge about the countries in the world, maybe from your personal experience, some books, TV, other classes you had before. You can rely on the measures from the two internet sites the instructor recommended).
2. Step: DEFINE your dependent variable. Do not just say ?My dependent variable is literacy among the population?. Tell us what YOU THINK literacy is. That way we will know what is your goal. This is important. This will help you further search. Tell yourself what is the definition of the dependent variable. Rely on textbooks to come up with the definition. Yes, you can define things too, it is not just that books and professors can define things. Of course, books and professors should be your source of information to come up with definitions.
3. Step: Measure the dependent variable in two countries. You came up with the idea that two countries have different results in regard to the dependent variable. You kinda guessed that France has higher literacy than Turkey, ok, but I can guess that that is not true, so what do we have? You have to get some hard solid reliable arguments on the table! UN report stated in this and this report (sourced, quote!) that Turkey has this percent of literate people and France this. So now you are safe that nobody can come up and say that your measurement of literacy is not valid, because you have your opinion supported by UN commission and he/she has just his/her opinion.
4. Step: Now you have to learn something about the two countries. Start with Wikipedia. Never quote it as a source, but you can start there to learn the basic facts about country?s population, ethnic groups, religious groups, percentages of rural and urban population, literate and illiterate, political system, electoral system, economic system, geographic location, state of infrastructure, etc. You should also use textbook with cases(countries), if you chose some of those countries. Among these information we have to find our independent/explanatory variables.
5. Step: So far you should have seen some somewhat bigger differences between these countries. Underline them, visualize them, put them on paper, contrast them. Country A has mineral resources, and country B does not, hm, is it significant? Both Norway and Nigeria have oil, but why Norway is using it good and Nigeria bad? It is not as if Norway has oil, Nigeria does not, so we say, ?this is the independent variable (aka explanatory variable)!? and we look no further.
6. Step: Now go back and check the three paradigms of comparative politics: rationalist, comparativist and culturalist. Imagine them as three boxes. Then take the independent variables that were different for the two countries in question and ?put them in the boxes?. If one country is having proportional electoral system and the other does not, you put that independent variable in the ?structuralist box?. If one country has rich mineral resources but leaders buy fancy cars for themselves and army generals and do not build hospitals, roads, etc, put that variable in ?rational choice box?. If you have detected that there is high level of religious conflict over some ?holly places?, you can put it in ?culturalist box?. Beware that not all independent variables are clear cut case. You will have doubts on where to put some of them. That is ok. Pick one box, but explain why you did that.
7. Take the box with the least number of variables, go downstairs, out the doors and throw it in the container.
8. Make two hypothesis based on the variables you have in the remaining two boxes. Which one explains better different measures of the dependent variable? Are you relaxed to rely only on one of the two hypotheses? If yes, you got the winner. If not, you pick one that you think is stronger, but do not forget to mention that the other one is also helpful.